


If I'd Ran with You

by vivilove



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Explicit Language, F/M, JonSa implied, Littlefinger take down, R plus L equals J, but they don't know it yet, chicken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 07:43:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9225353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivilove/pseuds/vivilove
Summary: The Brotherhood Without Banners stops at Winterfell on the way North to fight the Dead and the Lady of Winterfell reunites with the Hound.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mynameisnoneya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynameisnoneya/gifts).



There were nearly twenty strangers in the hall and Jon was speaking to a man near the front Sansa didn’t recognize. Winterfell’s guards seemed watchful and Ser Davos stood at the king’s side. Sansa could feel the tension in the room.

 _Perhaps I shouldn’t enter_ , she thought, _but Jon may need me_.

As though he had sensed her presence, Jon glanced at her then with a concerned expression that she couldn’t read. He beckoned her towards him with a wave. Sansa slowly walked towards the dais where her brother stood. She reached Jon and felt a nervousness that she couldn’t explain.  She was tempted to take his hand if only for the warm reassurance that he was with her but instead kept her hands clasped together before her as a lady should.

The man Jon was speaking with spoke courteously and had a deep, kind voice but he was not a pretty sight. He was wearing an eye patch and looked more fit for burial than standing and speaking in the Great Hall. There was another man speaking as well, who was quite tall, thin and ragged looking but he sounded highborn like the other. It was then that Sansa glanced over towards the even taller and much larger man standing off to the side. He was staring at her with a mixture of disbelief and fondness.

She gasped and practically ran to him, stopping a couple of paces away, and said “You’re alive.”

She reached out and touched his face and didn’t care what the other strangers might be thinking. She looked into his eyes and smiled.

 

* * *

 

She was far more beautiful than he’d remembered.

He knew when Beric spoke of stopping at Winterfell that he’d be returning to a place that might not have any warm regard for him.

Stark’s bastard was a king now. Sandor Clegane had little memory of the boy. Jon Snow had stayed away from the feast for King Robert and stayed clear of the training yard when Joffrey had sparred with Stark’s heir.

 _A bastard wouldn’t have been welcomed there by Joffrey. That’s probably why he was so scarce_.

He hoped Arya wouldn’t be there in a way. He’d spent more time with her than he had Sansa but he hadn’t quite forgotten the feeling of being left for dead and the coldness in her eyes when she took his purse and refused him mercy.

But it was said that one of Ned Stark’s daughters was by his bastard’s side in Winterfell and while Sandor wondered which one, he also wondering which one he was more afraid of facing again.

Beric and Thoros were discussing their purpose with this King in the North. The young man was grown now and looked every bit a fighter. Sandor wondered if the tales were true about him being returned from the dead.

 _At least he and Beric will have something to chat about there_ , he thought with a snort.

Then, he heard something like a rustling of leaves as men moved and parted ways for a young woman walking the length of the hall, a young woman with flaming red hair and lovely white skin. Sandor saw nothing else after but her. She stood next to her brother looking nervous and then she spotted him. He couldn’t believe the way she came up to him and looked at him, touching his face and smiling like he was the person she wanted most to see in the world.

“You’re alive,” she said with a bit of wonder.

“Yes, Little Bird. I’m alive.”

 

* * *

 

The more Jon spoke with Beric Dondarrion, the more he was pleased with what the man had to say. He and his men were bound for the Wall. They were around a hundred all told including the twenty or so that had come in to speak with him. The Red Priest, Thoros, had spoken of the cold winds rising in the North. They wanted to know about the Walkers and the Army of the Dead. They wanted to fight for the living. Jon was surprised but thrilled to find perfect strangers who understood the real threat to the realm and they had sought him out because they wanted to know what he knew about the enemy.

He had been less pleased to see the Hound in their midst. To be fair, he didn’t know the man but he had been Joffrey’s Sworn Shield when they came to Winterfell with King Robert and he seemed a brutal man.

Jon and Sansa had grown much closer than they were as children.  _Closer by far._

But she still kept her silences about many of the bad things that had happened to her while they were apart and Jon did the same with her. _So much pain between us. No need to hear it all_.

He wondered how much she’d seen of the Hound in Kings Landing. She was Joffrey’s betrothed there for a time and he was his guard. They must have been in each other’s presence quite a bit.

He was concerned that Clegane might be an unwanted reminder of that time but when he saw her standing uncertainly at the end of the hall, he knew he wanted her by his side.

Her reaction to Clegane was quite the opposite of what he would’ve imagined. After the obviously friendly greeting between them, Sansa had asked Jon if he’d sent word for food and ale for these men. He felt a bit foolish to have his sister remind him of a lord’s courtesy to his guests and he asked these men of the Brotherhood without Banners to sup with him and his sister.

He was sitting with Beric and Thoros and Davos discussing their plans and the things Jon had seen with his own eyes at Hardhome. But he kept looking over to where his sister sat apart with just the Hound, talking quietly together.  He ignored the stirring of jealousy in his breast.  He hoped that she was as happy as she seemed but couldn’t help but be confused by it.

 _When they are gone and we are alone together, I must talk with her and learn more of her experiences in Kings Landing,_ he thought _._

 

* * *

 

“Sit with me and tell me what brings you here,” she said as he tore into the chicken that the servants had brought.

“I joined with Beric and this lot. There’s fighting to be done up North they claim. It’s all I’m good for anyway.”

Sansa squashed her outward objection to that sentiment. _Good in a fight…certainly. But that’s not all you’re good for_.

“And where have you been? What have you seen since the Battle of Blackwater Bay?”

“Plenty and much of it shite. I, uh, spent time with your sister as well.”

“Arya?!” Sansa’s chest grew tight with emotion. Brienne had said she’d seen her but to have another person, a person who truly knew Arya and would know an imposter, confirm that Arya was indeed alive, or had been, was miraculous.

Sansa listened to his gruff words of the fighting he’d done, of the things he had seen. But there was a peace in him now that had been lacking before and she was glad of it. He was a man made for battle, for action and for violence…and yet there was good in him, too. _There has always been some good in him_.

“What of you, Little Bird? Here you are in your home again. How did that come to pass?”

“It came to pass…with fear and loss and pain and blood…but it came to pass all the same.”

“I’d heard you’d married a Bolton.”

“I did. It was not a pleasant time for me,” she said quietly.

 _Stupid, Dog…don’t ask her things that cause her pain.  She's had enough of that_. “Well, here you are now though. You and your brother back at your home together. That is something at least.”

“Yes,” she said as she smiled and looked fondly at her brother. “That is something.” She looked down at her hands for a moment before looking up into his eyes. “I often wonder though…if I’d ran with you that night…”

“Don’t think on it…it doesn’t matter now,” he said uncomfortably.

“They wouldn’t have married me to Tyrion.”

“Was it so bad? Married to the Imp?”

“No.”

“Well, then.”

“But if I’d ran with you…Lord Baelish would never have taken me to the Eyrie.”

“When were you in the Eyrie?”

“After Joffrey’s murder.”

“Fuck me…you might’ve been there…when I tried to bring the little bitch…never mind.”

“If I’d ran with you, he wouldn’t have talked me into marrying Ramsey.”

Sandor hung his head for a moment before he spoke. “If you’d ran with me, I might have raped you and left you for dead. I was an angry man and mad with fear and bloodlust the night I left.”

“I don’t think you would’ve hurt me.”

“If you’d ran with me, Beric and Thoros may have captured you when they captured me. And them or me may have got you to the Twins before the wedding. You might have died alongside your mother and your brother…or worse might have been done with you.”

“I can’t think of things much worse than Ramsey.”

“But your brother...Jon…would you have found him again if you’d ran with me?”

“Perhaps not," she said with a wistful expression.  "But, if I’d ran with you, I like to think that we would’ve been happy in each other’s company. I like to think that perhaps we could’ve sailed away from Westeros and left the horrors of the war behind.”

“There are plenty of horrors in this world beyond Westeros, Little Bird.”

As he finished his first chicken and called for another, she continued to chirp and chatter at his side. _A little bird in some ways still but wolf as well now_. He looked up for a moment and spotted Lord Baelish entering the hall.

“What in Seven Hells is Littlefucker doing here?”

“Lord Baelish brought the Knights of the Vale to our aid,” she answered with a furrowed brow.

“Oh, he did, did he? Was that to make up for the dagger he held to your father’s throat in the throne room when Joffrey took the crown then? To make up for making your father think the Gold Cloaks were on his side and then double-crossing him to the Lannisters?”

He watched her lovely blue eyes widen with surprise and then narrow with hate. She rose without warning but moved with pure grace.

“Jon!” she cried as she strode over to her brother and whispered in his ear.

And, as the commotion in the hall increased, Sandor finished his second chicken with a smile and hoped that she would come and talk to him some more of what they might have done if she’d ran with him.


End file.
